When It's Time to Kick the Dog Out of Bed

Is Your Precious Pet Derailing Your Human Relationships? You May Want to Reconsider Who Your Best Friend Really Is

By

Elizabeth Bernstein On Relationships

Updated Jan. 26, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

By the time Ellen and Joe Lollman reached their first anniversary, things were souring. They no longer took long walks together or spent weekend afternoons chatting over coffee at outdoor cafes. Each evening they holed up in separate rooms of their home reading or watching TV alone.

Finally, fearful their marriage was on the rocks, the Dallas couple made an appointment with a therapist—for their dogs.

"We both had dogs a lot longer than we had each other," explains Ms. Lollman. Yet it wasn't until she and her new husband moved in together after a long-distance courtship that their faithful companions actually met and, as luck had it, decided they hated each other. The Lollmans were forced to take sides.

Love triangles—or, in this case, quadrangles—involving pets might be the trickiest types of relationships.

We love our animal friends, of course, and for good reason. They're always happy to see us. They're forgiving of our faults. And if we care for them and show them affection, they will love us forever.

But the same is not necessarily true for humans, and there's the rub. Sometimes our slavish bonds with our pets can damage our relationships with family, friends and, especially, lovers.

Consider Marina Wolak and Buck, her one-year-old German shepherd. One day last week, she served him steamed broccoli for breakfast, raw ribs for a snack, and a grilled chicken breast and baked sweet potato for dinner. Her husband, Kirk, says he and their 10-year-old daughter got the chicken for dinner, but had no sides.

"Hello, what about us?" says Mr. Wolak, a 43-year-old computer consultant in Deerfield Beach, Fla. "She caters to this dog and has nothing left in the tank for the family."

Mr. Wolak says his wife buys fresh beef, chicken and rabbit for Buck, takes the dog to the park three times a day and puts fresh sheets on the mattress in his kennel twice a week. "She will stay up late if the dog needs an extra walk because he is constipated, but she can't stay up and spend a little quality time with her husband," he says.

Making matters worse: Both Mr. Wolak and their daughter are allergic to the dog. He estimates he has spent several thousand dollars on doctors' appointments, as well as a special air filter for their home. And, he says, he argues regularly with his wife over the cost of the dog's special diet, toys and training.

Getting Rid of the Dog

"There is only one answer to fixing the wedge between us, and that is to get rid of the dog," says Mr. Wolak, who believes that wouldn't be fair to Buck. "So I am stuck with him—and because he eats so damn well, he is going to live forever."

Ms. Wolak, for her part, says, "To get rid of Buck would be like getting rid of my daughter."

Try this: Ask your friends and family how their pets have affected their relationships with other people. I did. And everyone had a story.

One friend said she once found her boyfriend's clothes strewn down the stairs and throughout the living room—with cat poop on them. (She and the unlucky man are no longer together.) A cousin told of waking up in the middle of the night to find her boyfriend lying next to her in bed, whimpering, and Gunther Herman, her 95-pound Weimaraner, standing over him, growling. (Ditto.)

My aunt reminded me of a birthday party she threw years ago for her mom, where her new parrot told her mother's best friend—a genteel, elderly southern lady—what to do with herself. "I had no idea the bird knew those words," says my aunt. (Her mother, my grandmother, didn't speak to my aunt for a month.)

Of course, if a pet causes a rift in your relationship with another person, the problem may not be the animal.

Think of all those people who see pets as potential deal breakers in the dog-eat-dog world of dating. Robert Fletcher says that when he was single he was reluctant to date women with cats. "Maybe my knuckles really dragged the floor in those days," says Mr. Fletcher, 52, a regional manager of an employee-benefits firm in Austin, Texas. "But the thinking was that at some point in the relationship, she would have to make a critical decision between me and Snuggle-Poo and that it would cause consternation on her part to the extent that it would deter whatever progress was being made between us."

David Katz says his ex-girlfriend told him she broke up with him because he paid too much attention to a pug he was dog-sitting. "Yes, I have issues," says Mr. Katz, 36, the founder of a new social-networking Web site in Toronto. He now owns two miniature Pinschers, one with diabetes and one with a liver disorder. "My dogs and their health have become my priority, and I am not sure if I can ever be in a relationship again with someone who doesn't understand how much I love them," he says.

Using Pets as Weapons

Human-behavior experts—that is, therapists—say it is typically not the pet's fault if something goes wrong between people. "In my experience, pets do fine with relationships as long as the relationship is doing well," says Katherine Brodsky, a clinical social worker in Manchester, N.H. "But when the couple is having problems, often the pets are used as weapons for one partner against the other, just as children often are."

Kim Gorode can tell you all about it. Her live-in boyfriend loves their two cats but is allergic to them, so he gets weekly allergy shots. This works out well, she says—until they have a spat. "If it's a money issue, he sometimes blames it on the fact that he has to pay for allergy shots and I don't, or if he's in a bad mood he will say he's congested because of the cats," says Ms. Gorode, 27, an investor-relations representative who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "It's totally his trump card."

Josh Gottesmann, 25, a high-school teacher, admits his girlfriend is right. "This is my way of winning," he says.

So how do you keep the peace between your pet and your other loved ones?

James Serpell, a professor of animal welfare and director of the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of Pennsylvania, warns against ascribing human emotions or motives to your pets. Don't allow the animal to become too close to you. (He won't let his dogs or cat sleep with him.) And don't take their behavior personally. "Animals aren't that bright," he says. "They make simple associations, not complicated ones."

If all else fails, there is always pet therapy—it worked for the Lollmans. After their dogs nearly wrecked their marriage, they sent Darby, an Irish terrier, and Kacee, an Australian shepherd-border collie mix, to live with a trainer for four weeks. Then the entire family—two people, two dogs—met with the trainer once a week for 16 more weeks after the dogs came home.

"It was as expensive as human therapy," says Ms. Lollman, 63, chief financial officer of a lighting company. But it was worth it, says her husband, 65, an attorney: "You don't discard a pet."

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